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How many LEGO bricks to build a real house?

by Thita (admin) on January 22, 2013

How many LEGO bricks would it take to build a real house? If you are a LEGO fan you might have considered this question. After all, it would be real fun to build a real house out of LEGO! Wouldn’t it? But how many LEGO bricks would such an endeavor take? And how much would it cost?

Well, wonder no more! There are obviously some LEGO fans working at Movoto.com, the online real-estate agency, because they created this handy calculator to figure out how many LEGO bricks would it take to build your house out of LEGO, and also, how much it would cost. Give it a try! 😛

Fun, huh? Movoto shares the following on their blog: Has your inner child ever dreamed of living in a LEGO house? With a little imagination and hard work, building a new room or extending an existing room would be easy—and most importantly fun. Of course, a home built with millions of brightly colored bricks might not sit well with your Home Ownders Association. But when has an HOA ever made anything easy? At the Movoto Real Estate HQ, LEGO held a special place in our childhood. Boats, airplanes, and cars–we’ve built them all and tore them apart to rebuild them again. At least once, we’ve mused about building a real-life LEGO house…

Our house is 1,459 square feet, so according to the LEGO House Calculator it would take almost 9 million LEGO bricks to build, and cost close to a million dollars. And that’s just the exterior of the house (exterior wall and roof), the interior walls would be extra! I knew LEGO was expensive, but wow! I could buy so much more real house for that much money! 😯

You have probably heard about this already, but there is at least one person who attempted to build an entire house out of LEGO bricks. Below is a video showing how the LEGO house was built. I don’t like the exterior of the LEGO house – it’s pretty ugly in my opinion, but the interior is quite lovely.

If you are looking for a house, check out Movoto! They may not be able to find you a dream-house made of LEGO, but they would probably understand the needs of a LEGO fan for plenty of storage-space and lots of room for displaying your collection.

So how much would it cost to make your house out of LEGO? And how does it compare to the cost of your current house? Share your results in the comment section below! 😉

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CUUSOO: LEGO Train Turntable & Roundhouse

by Thita (admin) on January 21, 2013

in Featured LEGO Creations

If you are a LEGO train fan, there is a project on LEGO CUUSOO you might really like. It is a fully functional turntable for LEGO trains, motorized with LEGO Power Function elements, as well as a roundhouse. CUUSOO project creator Rasmus Fachman requested that we feature his model here as he would really like to get your feedback and support. 🙂

LEGO Train Turntable & Roundhouse by Fachmann

Turntables are used for trains to be able to fully turn around or sent into different directions. In locations where the trains also had a maintenance facility, the turntable is often surrounded by a building called a roundhouse where the trains can be repaired.

Train Turntable & Roundhouse at Union Station

As you can imagine creating a fully functional turntable out of LEGO is not an easy task. Especially if you also want to make it look realistic. You need to find the right parts to use, and the right radius for the turntable to work properly and align smoothly with the tracks. And making the whole thing motorized is just adding perfection!

Rasmus was able to accomplish all of this after a lot of testing and tweaking, designing a beautiful turntable for LEGO trains, using only currently available LEGO parts and Power Function elements (no need for LEGO to make special parts for this project, which is definitely a plus).

The other part of this LEGO train project is the roundhouse. I particularly like this design! Rasmus made the roundhouse modular style; designing a mid-section and an end-section that can be combined to create any size roundhouse for your LEGO trains. Very impressive! 😛

LEGO Train Roundhouse Module 1 by Fachman

LEGO Train Roundhouse Module 2 by Fachman

The LEGO Train Turntable & Roundhouse is really a dream-come-true for LEGO train fans, especially those with a large LEGO train layout. It is impressive, functional, and does what real turntables do; get those trains sent out in the right direction.

LEGO Train Roundhouse with Train by Fachman

The weakness I see in this CUUSOO project is that it doesn’t address cost or a business model that LEGO might be comfortable with. However even if it doesn’t get selected as an official LEGO project I really hope that Rasmus will provide instructions and a list of parts needed to build it. I think this LEGO train project would be perfect for a LEGO book on trains!

LEGO Train Turntable Side View by Fachman

And if the LEGO Train Turntable & Roundhouse does get 10,000 votes on CUUSOO and LEGO gives it the green-light, this would be a perfect set for LEGO train fans! If you would like to give your support and vote for the LEGO Train & Roundhouse project and to see more details go to: Vote for LEGO Train & Roundhouse on CUUSOO

So what do you think of this LEGO train project? How do you like the design? Would you like it to be made into an actual LEGO set? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below! Rasmus would love to hear your feedback! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

LEGO Train Horizon Express
More 2013 LEGO Sets Are Now Available! (including Horizon Express)

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How many LEGO bricks to build a real house?

CUUSOO: LEGO Train Turntable & Roundhouse

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